Apple Pie Life (previously titled Goodbye)
by The Raisin Girl
Summary: Sam wakes up one morning to an empty hotel room and a tape recorded message from his brother, asking him to do just one thing: move on with his life. Rated T for language. Spoilers for season eight. Dean and Sam brother!feels, Destiel relationship.
1. Goodbye

Sam wakes up one morning to an empty motel room.

The weapons, their research for the latest case, everything is gone. The room is empty except for his bag and a tape recorder on the table by the door. Sam picks it up with a growing sense of trepidation and presses play. His brother's voice fills his ears, sounding exhausted and sad even through the crappy little speakers.

"I don't know when it happened. Maybe while you were off getting your demon on with Ruby, maybe when we went our separate ways after Lucifer got out…hell, maybe it was Purgatory that finally did it. I just…Cas is important to me. He's always been important, but it's different now. And I lied to you, Sammy. Maybe Cas isn't dead. I don't know for sure. I found him down there, and we…we had a plan for getting out. I tried to bring him with me. I tried to hold on, but he just slipped away from me.

"I never would've left him there on purpose, not in a million years. I thought I had to put it behind me though, y'know? We've both seen what kinda monsters can crawl out of Purgatory if you give 'em so much as an inch to push through. I couldn't take that kind of risk, not even for Cas. But I can't do it anymore, Sam. I try to tell myself there's no other choice. I try to be strong and forget…and I just can't. So I'm going back in.

"I know you're not gonna like this. I can hear you now. It's too dangerous. I could let something else out, something worse than the Leviathan. Cas might already be dead. I could get stuck there forever. And I know all of that man, I really do, but…honestly? We've torn the world apart more times than I can count for each other, and Cas has given up more for me than I can even stomach thinking about, and…well, I guess it's time one of the Winchesters does some bleeding for him for a change." The scratchy recording goes silent for a moment, and Sam imagines he can make out a sigh.

"Anyway…I'd rather be stuck there with him than here without him. You can hate me for it all you want, but that's the God's honest truth. While I was there all I could think about was gettin' out, gettin' back to my geek brother, but now...it's like I'm missing a part of me, man. I know that sounds…maybe it's exactly what it sounds like, I dunno. We never got around to having that conversation.

"I can't let you stop me. I know you'll try if I give you the chance, and I don't have the energy to fight you and break into another dimension at the same time. So here's what I'm gonna do: I'm gonna get rid of all my fake IDs. I'm gonna take the weapons I think I can use over there, and the rest are gonna disappear. The room is paid for and the car is cleaned and parked outside. My cell phones are all broken, so don't try to call me and talk me out of this. Benny's been instructed to lose your number. Kevin and his mom are with Alfie, so they're not your responsibility anymore.

"This is my goodbye letter, little brother. Listen to it, be mad at me all you want, and then I want you to forget about it. Put up a grave marker, burn my tapes, sell the car…whatever you have to do, do it. And then…move on. Like you did last year. Go find Amelia, and your dog, and hope to God they're dumb enough to take you in again. Go live that normal, apple-pie life. Get your law degree. Put a picture of me somewhere, tell your kids about their dumb Uncle Dean someday."

Dean's voice breaks, and Sam has to swallow hard to keep the tears from coming. His hands are shaking, and no. This isn't what he wanted. This isn't what he meant when he said he wanted a normal life. He folds himself into one of the chairs because he doesn't think his legs with hold him through what he feels coming.

"I spent my whole life lookin' out for you and I don't regret a goddamn minute of it. That was my job for a long time. I didn't always do it too good, but I did the best I could and I hope you weren't too messed up by it. But now you're all grown up and you've dealt with your demons, and you're ready to get out and move on. You can take care of yourself…but Cas can't right now. He needs me…and God help me but I need him, too. So…I'm gonna go get him. If we ever do make it back here I'll send ya a postcard.

"I love you Sammy. I'm proud of you."

* * *

**Author's Note:** I finally caught up with season gr8 tonight and I just had too many feelings. I refuse to believe Dean would ever leave Castiel in Purgatory on purpose, so this is my way of parsing what could have happened and what Dean could be thinking and why he's not trying to get Cas out right now, and maybe also to deal with some of the brothers tension that's going on in the show right now. This of course would be set way later than what we've seen so far, when they've reconnected with the Trans and Sam knows about Benny. I have a vague notion for a second installment but no promises...just depends on if my feels leave me alone or not!


	2. Moving On

Sam tries to do what his brother asked, he really does.

He doesn't remember how he did it before. Honestly, it was something that happened to him more than something he really tried to do. He hit a dog, and went running to save it like that dog's life was the most important fucking thing in the universe because dammit, he'd hurt and killed and let down enough people and he wasn't going to let the fucking dog die. Then Amelia made him keep the damn thing, and there he was with a girl and a dog and that ever-elusive normal life he'd always wanted so badly.

He still misses it, but he doesn't go back to Amelia when Dean disappears. He doesn't go looking for Dean, either. He tries to do what his brother asked and move on, but he does it on his own terms.

Sam finds a house out in the middle of nowhere, off a little-used back road in the mountains of northern Georgia. It's falling down and overgrown and ugly, and he buys it with the last of the ill-gotten income from his life as a hunter. He gets an easy job as a fry cook at a local diner, something that doesn't require a lot of thinking, and he goes to work every day and does his job and comes home. He doesn't get another dog. He also doesn't burn Dean's tapes or sell his car. He does put a picture of him, one of the few he has of the two of them together as kids, in a frame on the empty bookshelf in his living room. Sam saves his paychecks for paint, and better carpet, to fix the roof where its shingles need replacing, and to install an air conditioner. He doesn't indulge a lot: he eats healthy and sparingly, doesn't drink or go out. He buys books, normal books, books printed in the last hundred years that have nothing to do with the paranormal or the occult, and he reads a lot during his free time. By the end of a year, he needs a second bookshelf.

When he realizes Dean has been gone for over a year, Sam goes out and buys a metal lockbox and a shovel. He puts all Dean's tapes, the rest of their pictures, and their dad's journal in it and locks it up tight, and buries it in the back yard under a scrawny little peach tree he's been trying to encourage. He throws the key as far as he can into the woods behind his house, turning quickly so he doesn't have even the slightest chance of seeing where it lands. He starts saving money in a jar every week after that, and by Christmas that year he has a headstone marking the spot, shaded by the scraggly arms of the tree.

_Here lies Dean Winchester. Father, brother, beloved son. An angel is watching over you._

He didn't have them include the birth or death dates, mostly because Sam's lost track of all of them over the years.

Alice Parker is an accident that happens on Dean's birthday. Sam didn't go looking for anyone to share his life with; after so many years of loss and pain and terror, he was simply grateful to live a quiet life and go to bed feeling relatively safe at night. He bumps into Alice at the hardware store, perusing flower seeds in the gardening section where he was making a futile attempt at picking out a fertilizer that might encourage that damn tree to blossom come spring. She looks at him with big, green eyes set wide over a freckled nose and slightly obscured by tendrils of chestnut-colored hair, and Sam almost stops breathing for a second. He tries to back away as gracefully as possible, but she has a kind of persistent joviality that reminds him, oddly enough, of Becky Rosen with an upper limit installed on the crazy. She keeps popping up in his life after that, no matter how careful he is to stay guarded and aloof and out of her way. Eventually, he stops being so careful and just lets her in.

She's perpetually optimistic, and sweet, and she likes books almost as much as he does. In another year she's added to his collection with some of her own favorites, and she has a drawer full of clothes in his bedroom. She's even helped him pick out curtains for the downstairs windows. She never asks about the headstone in the back yard, but she does offer to help him with the tree. One very gross composting endeavor later, and it's looking promising. He thinks that this year it might even blossom.

It doesn't, but Sam just promises himself he'll keep trying.

Alice moves in that October, and they redecorate the whole place together until it's unrecognizable as the same shabby little house where Sam spent so many months alone. Between the two of them, they can even afford to build onto it a little, and Sam adds a garage for the car. Alice loves the Impala, and Sam manages to keep the ache out of his smile when he watches the way she handles it. It reminds him far too much. If she notices she doesn't say anything, and her unwillingness to make him face his demons is just one more thing he loves about her.

She does ask him, just once, who the two little boys are in the photo on top of the bookshelf. He swallows hard, smiles, and tells her that's him and his dumbass big brother when they were kids. She seems to understand that his brother is the one all but buried in the back yard, and she doesn't mention it again until it's their three year anniversary and she's telling him he's going to be a father.

"Sam," she says in that warm voice that always makes him feel safe and loved, "I think if it's a boy we should name him Dean."

He throws his arms around her, buries his face in her hair, and chokes out a hoarse, "I think that's a great idea." He cries for his brother for the first time that night, tears soaking into her hair, and she just holds him.

Sam tells her as much as he can about his insane life while leaving out the reasons for all of it. She seems to accept that he's being as honest as he thinks he can, but that's what he loves about her. She's never asked why his brother's last name was Winchester and his own last name is Wesson. She doesn't even blink when he tells her he wants the baby to have her last name. Alice just accepts things for what they are, doesn't go digging for details she doesn't absolutely need, and trusts Sam to tell her if there's anything truly important she should know.

She doesn't need to know that the house is warded, symbols carved into the baseboards under the carpet, for instance. She just needs to know that their home is safe, and that Sam will be there for her and their kid.

Mary Deanna Parker is born on May 30th, 2019. Sam holds her in his arms and he knows with perfect clarity that he would do any and every insane thing he ever criticized Dean for doing to protect him for this little girl in his arms. She's perfect, and he feels like he could suffocate from the sheer force of protective, overwhelming, terrifying love he feels pressing in on him from all sides as he stares down at her.

"I can't believe we made this," he says dumbly, and Alice laughs and quips that after all,_ she_ did most of the work.

They take their baby home to a brightly-colored house full of overstuffed bookshelves and happy memories. The spring after she's born, the peach tree finally blossoms.

On her third birthday Sam gets a thick, letter-sized envelope in the mail. It's postmarked to Sam Wesson & Alice and Mary Parker, but there's no return address. He opens it and pulls out a small stack of papers. The one on top makes his heart stutter in his chest.

It's a postcard of the Grand Canyon lit up by a sunrise. There's no return address on this either, but there's a short message scrawled on the back.

_Made it home okay. Angel-face says hello. Tell my niece not to be a giant dork like her daddy._

It's so utterly Dean, and Sam is suddenly dying to see him. He needs to look his brother in the face and see that he's okay, that Purgatory didn't break him or change him, or worse: leave him alone in the world beside a shell that used to be the only real friend he'd ever had. But…_angel-face says hello_. Sam smiles, imagining Cas's wide-eyed, stoic expression and deadpan greeting. He sets the card aside carefully, like something precious he's afraid to break, and turns his attention to the rest of the papers in the pile.

The second one is a Disney Princess coloring book that appears to have been divested of all the pages pertaining to Aurora, Cinderella, Ariel, and Snow White. Belle, Rapunzel, Tiana, Pocahontas, Merida, and Lilliana (the heroine in a fairly recent take on _The Twelve Dancing Princesses_) have all been left intact, and Sam raises an eyebrow and can't suppress a laugh when he reads the inscription on the inside cover.

_You can be a girly hero or a tomboy princess, or you can be all of the above. The one thing you don't ever have to be is a damsel in distress, but don't forget that even superheroes need to ask for help sometimes. Happy 3__rd__ Birthday!_

_Love,  
Uncle Dean_

Sam loves it, and he knows Alice will too. He makes a mental note to pick up a new box of crayons and add them to the little pile of gifts currently hidden under the floor of the trunk in the Impala.

The next item in the stack is a book of some kind, thin and paper-bound, with a blank cover and no title. Sam opens it curiously, only to nearly drop it when he comes face to face with a picture of his brother.

Dean's older than when Sam last saw him—he'd be over 40 now, after all—and the years show a little more than Sam would like, especially around the eyes, but whatever joy that takes from the image is thrown right back in by the happiness that seems to radiate from his every pore. The photo is at an angle, catching him half in profile with the sunlight hitting him full on, and his expression is all squinty laughter, white teeth against a deeply tanned face and the green of his eyes just barely peeking out between his lashes. Dean looks radiant—boy, wouldn't he tease Sam for days if he knew that thought had crossed his mind?—and the knowledge strikes Sam like a hammer to his temple that the person who took this photo must absolutely adore his brother. He thinks he knows who it was.

The next pictures all but confirm it. Sam wryly thinks that what he's holding looks like a brochure for gay honeymoon destinations. Each page is covered with different-sized prints of Dean and Castiel, sometimes alone but mostly together, in all the places that a lifetime of moving all over the country never showed them. Dean and Cas on a boat with the Statue of Liberty looming in the background; Dean on a mechanical bull being tossed around like a rag doll; Cas raising an eyebrow at Dean as the latter puts bunny ears on a fake alien in Roswell. In one they're standing side by side at the entrance to Yellowstone National Park, Dean's arm thrown around Cas's shoulders like it's something he does all the time. It probably is, come to think of it. Dean is beaming away like it's the happiest day of his life, and Cas is looking at Dean, a soft smile on his face and quiet contentment in his wide blue eyes.

There's even one—and Sam doesn't even want to think about how they managed to get two supposedly dead men through that kind of security—of Castiel smiling bemusedly while being smooshed between Dean and Mickey Mouse.

The last page has no pictures on it, just a note in a small, neat hand that Sam knows instantly even without a signature.

_Dean did not want me to, but here is our address. He thinks he's doing you both a favor by staying away, but I'd like to think that things can change for the better and old habits can die. I hope you are as happy with your family as I am with mine, and I hope someday I can convince you both that Dean needs to meet his namesake._

The address is a post office box in some little town in Nebraska. Sam grins at the thought of his brother crisscrossing the country on a perpetual road trip with his angel in tow. He takes a deep breath and looks out the window at the tree, its branches hung with hard little knobs that will be peaches by the middle of the summer. It eases an ache inside of him he didn't even realize he still felt, just knowing that all that remains of his brother isn't buried in a lock box in his back yard. Then he sighs, because he knows he'll have to show all of this to Alice when she gets home, and there is no way she won't be climbing the walls with excitement until he gets his idiot brother here.

He wonders if she'll be quite so excited once said idiot brother starts indoctrinating their daughter into classic rock, swear words, and hustling poker.

The very thought makes him laugh to himself, and he's suddenly dying to have his brother and Castiel under his roof, in front of his face, solid and real and alive. He knows Dean will put up a fight and, if the way his brother looks at Cas in half those pictures is any indication, he knows he'll lose. Practically bouncing as he moves, Sam heads for his computer and taps impatiently on the table until it pulls up the website he's looking for.

"Hello? Yes, hi, my name is Sam Wesson, and I'm trying to reach a friend of mine who recently changed his number. Do you happen to have a phone number on file for box 3512? Sure, I'll wait."

By the time Alice arrives home with a squealing, giggling mess of sandy curls and freckles balanced on one hip, Sam is sitting at the kitchen table with a slip of paper clutched tightly in his hand and a grin fighting to take over his face for good. As her smile grows to match his automatically, he stands and comes over to take her in his arms, balancing Mary between them.

"Alice, honey," he says, without preamble or explanation. "How would you like to meet my older brother?"

* * *

**Author's Note:** I was so depressed by that last thing I wrote that I had to write a second chapter just to kiss it better. I'm seriously considering doing a companion piece now that will look at things from Dean's side in a similarly brief format. Thoughts?


	3. Free Will

When Dean walked away and left his brother sleeping in that motel room, it went against every instinct he has.

Because Dean Winchester_ is_ his love for his brother. It's the first order his dad ever gave him, and it's the one that nested deep and grew until it consumed and transmuted everything else about him. No amount of years, no amount of torture and mistakes, no amount of knowing for certain that Sam doesn't have that same deep-rooted, unshakable drive will ever be enough to fire that out of him.

It's just…hasn't he always railed against destiny, fought against predetermination? Hasn't he always believed that the thing that makes monsters need killing, makes humans worth saving, is that to be human is to choose one road over another? A monster goes with its instincts, barrels ahead snarling and snapping at anything and everything it sees as a threat. Dean doesn't want to be a monster, not even for his brother, so he makes a choice.

He knows that if Sam is ever in trouble he will still come running as long as he has legs to run with…but right now Sam isn't in trouble. Sam's fine. In fact, Sam's better than fine: pulled from Hell, re-ensouled, rid of his nightmares and his visions and his hallucinations of the Devil. All he wants now is a normal life, and while Dean can't give that to him, he can make the choice to walk away and let him have it, and he will. He does, because for once in his life Dean realizes that he has the choice to make. Sam doesn't need him right now.

Somewhere, there's someone who does, someone who would walk through Hell for him, who _has_, someone who's laid waste to Heaven and opened up the Earth and tried to face the hordes of Purgatory alone, all for him. Dean isn't going to leave him there, not when he promised he'd take them both home. Not when every day that passes without him aches and throbs, gaping emptiness inside like a piece of Dean's soul is missing.

_Hell,_ he thinks, _it probably is._

He has no idea how to get back into Purgatory, but he thinks he knows where to start looking. The list of possibilities is long, but he bets most or all of them would just as soon kill him—or_ eat_ him—as look at him. It doesn't matter. Dean's made his choice, and he doesn't shy away from it. He doesn't look back.


	4. In Repair

"You have lost your goddamn mind," Benny drawls from a shadowy corner of the room. Dean ignores him, just like he's been ignoring pretty much anyone who tells him what he's attempting to do is foolhardy, dangerous, and impossible. He already knows all of that, after all.

"Dean, I'm serious, brother," Benny says, sounding more urgent this time. "We barely got out alive the first time, and now you wanna dive back in? Angel might not even be—"

"Don't." Dean cuts him off there, voice harsher than it's been towards Benny in a long time.

"I know you're all about the loyalty and I know he means a lot to you…but _he_ wouldn't want you to do this."

"Yeah, well, he's done dumber things tryin' to save my ass," Dean mutters, still focused on the text in front of him and wishing fervently that Bobby were here—not that Bobby wouldn't just give him extra hell for even trying this. "Guess you could say I owe 'im one."

"Fine," Benny says, sounding as frustrated as his gentle, drawling voice will allow. "How can I help?"

Dean turns to him. "You can tell me every single thing you know about Purgatory and the door we came through."

* * *

In the end the solution is devastatingly simple. Dean can't believe he didn't think of it before, even though a part of him doesn't even want to consider it. After nearly two years of scouring the continent for answers hasn't given them any other leads, though, he's ready to try anything. Benny thinks it's the only thing that just might work—even if he puts undue stress on the _might_ and tells Dean at least five times a day how crazy he is to keep trying.

Purgatory wasn't made for humans. That's why there was a door for them to come through; it wanted to spit Dean out as badly as he wanted to leave. If those are the rules, then…Castiel just has to become human. He has to tear out his Grace.

Getting that message to Cas and convincing him it's the only way are another story entirely, of course, and that takes Dean to levels of weird spellwork mumbo-jumbo he never wanted to mess with. He does though; he gets his hands dirty up to the shoulders and doesn't think twice about it, because it's Cas. And in the end it pays off: exactly four years and four months after he first set out to find his angel, Dean is flat on his back in the smoking remains of an old barn and Cas is a cold, heavy weight in his arms, pale and barely breathing but _alive_.

His eyes are rolling in his head and for a second Dean is afraid that what he pulled out won't be _his _Castiel at all, but then those glassy blue irises lock onto him and hold. There's a choked rasp that might have been "hello Dean," and he's so happy he could cry because Cas is _here_. Graceless, damaged, and dirty…but here. Dean can see him and feel him, and for the moment that's enough. He takes that warmth and stores it up, locks it away where it can't be touched as he struggles to get them both upright and moving. He knows he'll need it for the coming days.

He doesn't realize how much.

* * *

After his initial attempt at speech, Castiel is mostly unresponsive as Dean half-drags, half-carries him to the Impala, drives them to a motel, and gets him cleaned up and put to bed. Dean puts it down to exhaustion and tries to be quick, managing to get Cas looking more or less like himself and buried under a pile of soft blankets in less than an hour. Castiel doesn't close his eyes, though, just stares up at Dean with that same blurry recognition, and Dean's heart constricts painfully. He slides into the bed beside Cas without another thought, curls up behind him and holds him close and warm, feels his uneven breathing stutter and catch and then restart, as if it's a task Cas isn't used to performing all the time. He warms the ex-angel's cold hands with his own and presses his face into the sharp bones of Cas's shoulder blades, his own breath hitching as his stomach starts to curl and squirm with the first twinges of doubt. He tamps down on that firmly and closes his eyes, determined to go to sleep.

In his arms Cas's rigid muscles relax, but his eyes remain open and staring through the night, even as his breathing evens out to match Dean's and his mind goes to sleep.

* * *

Three day later Dean starts to panic in earnest. Castiel's body may be human, but his mind is still that of a fallen angel of questionable mental stability. It doesn't do things that a human mind would do automatically, like make his body breathe consistently, or make his eyes blink when they're dry or close when he's tired. He doesn't eat, even when Dean tries to coax food into him, and he doesn't speak. Dean tries to get him to talk a couple of times, but Castiel just stares up at him without responding. Dean almost wonders if Cas is even in there, but then he thinks back to that moment in the barn when Cas recognized him and reassures himself fiercely that this is still his angel.

That works for seven more days before Dean finally cracks. He doesn't do it in the usual way, suddenly loud and promising violence if his words aren't heeded. It comes on slowly, creeping up on him so he can't stop it, can't push it to the back of his mind like he usually would. He's in bed with Cas again, curled up against his back for fear that if he sleeps too far away he'll wake up to find that he stopped breathing in the night. It's been a long day; Cas would barely eat, as usual, and only drank a small cup of water after Dean begged him for two solid hours. He looks paler and thinner than he did when he arrived. Dean sees a hospital bed in their immediate future, fake insurance cards, feeding tubes and a respirator keeping Cas's body alive while his mind continues to drift. It's that image that does it, finally. It's seared into his brain before he can stop it, and he chokes on his own breath, gasps around the tears he can't make fall from his eyes, clutches at Cas and sobs, dry painful sounds of anguish into the back of one of his old t-shirts that soon shape themselves into words, into prayers.

"Cas, I'm sorry. I should've found another way. I should've found a better way to save you. I should've gotten to you sooner, something. God. I'm so sorry. But please…please don't do this. I already lost you once and I…I can't do it again. I just can't do it again."

He babbles into Cas's back for what feels like hours but is really only minutes, his lungs burning from the lack of air as he tries and fails to breathe around his panic. His chest feels like it could split open from the pain of what he knows is coming for them: a slow decay in a drab little room, life departed long before death actually arrives, and the sour pall of his own helplessness over everything.

Castiel doesn't suddenly blink to life. He doesn't go back to his old self and tilt his head in confusion at Dean's human emotions. He does lift one hand to wrap it around Dean's on his stomach, a weak press of skin to skin that has Dean immediately silent and still, breath held and every muscle locked.

"Cas?" He sounds like a child, so hopeful and ready to believe just seconds after despair. Something unknots itself from around Castiel's mind and falls away. He squeezes Dean's hand again, a little harder this time.

"Cas," Dean breathes, cautious relief brushing against the skin of Castiel's neck and tickling the hairs at the nape. He moves experimentally, leaning into that air and finding himself nuzzling against something solid that pushes back, warm skin against his and weak laughter in his ear. Dean holds him tighter, arms and legs wrapped around him so that he is cocooned, surrounded by the feel and smell of Dean. It's safety at last after so much fearful darkness, and he relaxes into it, matching his breathing to Dean's as he slowly unwinds himself from the intricate tangle of pain, guilt, and loneliness he's been hiding in for some untold amount of time.

It's warm and quiet in this room. The yellow street lamp filters through the curtains and the air smells of old cigarettes. Dean is real and _there_, and no one is coming for them. Castiel sighs and lets his eyes drift closed.

* * *

It takes months, but eventually Castiel really is himself again, more or less. On the less side of things, he isn't really an angel anymore, although Dean still refers to him as one sometimes in a way that Cas suspects is part habit, part veiled affection. In any case, he's sure it has nothing to do with divine beings. He can no longer hear the voices of the Host, but he knows they're still there, and that gives him a feeling of dread combined with dubious comfort. He has to eat, and bathe, and sleep now, not to mention all sorts of other time-consuming human necessities that he isn't used to worrying about. He can no longer fly, and his physical strength is tempered by the normal human limits of his slight build and weakened physical state. It's all rather banal and annoying.

On the more side, however, he _is_ human. He sees the world through human eyes the way Dean sees it, feels things the way Dean feels them. He finds, with no small measure of surprise, that he enjoys many of the same things Dean enjoys, and for their own sake. He is particularly fond of cherry pie, and he seems to have retained some of Jimmy Novak's liking for red meat. He prefers AC/DC to Led Zeppelin, which Dean considers a small but allowable blasphemy.

He still doesn't understand a lot about being human, and this makes for some awkward encounters and exchanges. These moments still make Dean laugh, and so Castiel doesn't mind all that much.

Eventually he's strong enough to move around a little more often, and that's when he asks Dean what they're going to do from now on.

"Well," Dean hedges, scratching the back of his neck and avoiding Cas's eyes. "I was thinkin' we could keep on the road. I mean, we don't have to hunt. We could, if you wanted, but we don't have to. We could actually see some stuff instead of just passing everything by. I've always wanted to see the Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone National Park." He pauses, but goes on before Castiel has the chance to say anything, still not meeting his eyes.

"If you don't want to do any of that it's fine, I get it, you can go wherever—"

"Dean." Castiel breaks through Dean's uncharacteristic ramble, surveying the man's flushed face and chagrined expression with a delight that he makes no attempt to conceal. "Yes."

Dean snaps his head up and searches Castiel's face for a moment before narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

"Yes?"

"Yes," Castiel says earnestly, holding Dean's gaze.

* * *

It isn't a cakewalk by any means. They don't agree on everything, and Castiel is probably the one person on the planet who can render Dean literally speechless with fury. Of course, he's also the only person on the planet willing to put up with Dean's temper tantrums and ranting, his random bouts of sulky silence, his sporadic nightmares and consistently horrible eating habits…not to mention the macho posturing and tyrannical control of the radio in the car. Things even out.

They take it easy at first. Castiel isn't at full strength—human strength, that is—yet. He can't assist Dean on hunts and Dean actually isn't willing to leave him alone in a motel room all day and night while he ganks monsters, so they take an extended vacation. Castiel chafes under the feeling of being weak and needing to be coddled, but soon he notices what he should have already known: Dean _enjoys_ taking care of people, and he desperately needs a vacation. There are shadows under his eyes, lines on his face where there were none just a few short years ago, and he's lost a bit of weight himself. So Castiel submits, as graciously as he can, to being taken care of and watches with quiet joy as the light comes back into Dean's eyes little by little.

They head west. It's the wrong time of year for it; Arizona's going to be hot as hell when they get there and probably crawling with tourists. Castiel doesn't care, and if the way Dean belts Quiet Riot out of key for the first two hours is any indication, neither does he. They eat up the miles quickly at first, then more slowly as Cas starts to show interest in his surroundings. After the third time Castiel turns in his seat to shoot quizzical looks at the signs for a flea market, Dean chuckles and exits off the highway, explaining without having to be asked that no, it isn't a market that sells fleas and no, he doesn't know why it's called that.

It takes them weeks to travel distances that once would have taken Dean only days. They aren't in any hurry, though. There's no destination in mind, no monster that needs killing pressing them for time. Sure, Dean knows there are definitely still monsters that need killing, but right now he's focused on taking care of his angel. He loves watching Castiel take in every new town like it's a completely different animal from the one before. It's like watching a kid seeing everything for the first time. After a while Dean even starts to notice a few things himself, like how the land changes from region to region in shape and color, and how the air feels different in each place, not just in temperature, but in taste and smell and weight as well. His nightmares are fewer and further between, and if he feels guilty for shirking his duties, well, it's just instinctive. It isn't nearly as deep an emotion as the way he feels teaching Cas to drive, or showing him _Star Wars_ for the first time.

"So," he says when the credits appear on the screen at the end of the first film. "What'd you think?"

"I think the princess is going to choose Han Solo in the end," Castiel states blandly. Dean does a double-take, leaning back from where he's possibly been sitting closer than necessary to give the angel an incredulous look.

"What makes you say that?" Castiel shrugs, a gesture he learned quickly considering the number of times _I don't know_ is his appropriate response when it comes to all things human.

"Isn't it obvious?"

"No it's not obvious," Dean shoots back, slightly outraged that his angel figured it out so quickly. Call him dense, but Dean was rooting for Luke and Leia right up until he found out they were siblings. Maybe just a little bit after, even. "Luke is the hero!"

"Exactly," Castiel says. "Luke is the hero. In classical literature the hero is almost always a solitary figure. Even if that were not so, Luke is almost…too good."

"Okay, you lost me."

Castiel turns in his seat, angling his body towards Dean and pulling one leg up, eyes bright with his revelations.

"Luke is a good person, but in many ways he is still a child. He needs much guidance. And he's impulsive."

"Please," Dean scoffs. "Like Han Solo isn't impulsive."

"He is," Castiel concedes. "The difference is that Han operates under his own instruction. He is confident in his abilities. Luke is a naïve boy looking for adventures, an idealist who sees the world as he thinks it should be. Han is a grown man who understands the world for what it is. As a politician, Leia would have to be able to do this also. Therefore, I think he and Leia would be much more compatible than Leia and Luke."

"Oh come on, that's not how these things work, Cas! Love isn't a numbers game, man. It's not all about who's compatible. Sometimes it's about who gets your blood runnin' hot."

"In that case, Han would most definitely win," Castiel retorts with a small smile. There's a gleam in his eye that Dean finds slightly worrisome, but he doesn't ask. Instead he sits back in his seat with a huff, grumbling under his breath about bratty angels who think too much.

"Besides," Castiel says just as the prologue for the next movie begins scrolling up the screen. "Han and Leia argue often."

Dean gives Castiel a bug-eyed look of disbelief.

"And you think that means they're in love? Dude, where did you get your fucked up ideas about romance?"

"People who love each other argue," Castiel says with finality. He doesn't say _you used to argue with Sam all the time, _because they haven't spoken of Sam yet, and he isn't sure how Dean would react. He also doesn't say _you always argue with me. _He simply settles in against the back of the motel couch and watches the movie, drawing a perverse contentment from the way Dean keeps shooting looks at him out of the corner of his eye.

When Leia professes her love to Han just before he's encased in carbonite, Castiel smiles.

* * *

Castiel is facing away from Dean, eyes transfixed by the wonder before them both. Dean has been waiting to see this all his life, but now that he's here he can't seem to stop looking at Cas. Unfathomable twists and juts of red rock and shining water before him, massive open space and golden sky, fiery orange light over everything…and Dean can't even look at it. He knows the light will be gone soon, that he might never make it back here, that he's missing his chance. It doesn't matter. Castiel's brow is furrowed, eyes squinting against the bright light. The dry breeze lifts his hair off his forehead and the glow of an Arizona sunset lights him up almost from the inside out. It's too warm to be the light of Heaven, too soft to be Grace, but Dean almost swears he can hear the rustle of shadowy wings.

Castiel watches the sun set over the Grand Canyon, and Dean watches Cas. They both leave feeling as if they've received a revelation.

* * *

Somewhere between Albuquerque and Disney World, Dean starts making mysterious phone calls. Whenever Castiel excuses himself to the bathroom or walks into a station to pay for gas, he comes back to hear Dean bid a hushed and hasty farewell to whoever is on the other line. He has a guess and he doesn't pry. He just hopes Dean is getting good news.

They're at a roadside stand in Georgia—which is sweltering, even in early May—buying Cas's first-ever bag of boiled peanuts when Dean finally says, as offhandedly as he can manage, "So…I've been askin' after Sam."

"How is he?" Castiel returns casually. He knows the news isn't bad, or else Dean wouldn't be as calm as he is. If Sam were in trouble they'd be having this conversation on the road, going ninety miles an hour in his direction.

"He's…well he's kinda dropped off the hunter radar, but a friend of mine's been keeping tabs on him for me since I left. He's settled down with a girl, somewhere over in Banks County. They're about to have a baby."

Castiel isn't sure how to react. Even more disconcertingly, he's not sure if his uncertainty is because he isn't used to being human, or because he knows how complicated the situation is. Dean looks at a loss himself.

"Are we going to go and see them?" he asks finally, still unsure.

"No!" It's harsher than Dean intended, but Castiel doesn't flinch. He understands.

"Okay," he says simply. They don't mention Sam for a long time after that.

* * *

Weeks turn into months, and months turn into years. The time slips by almost painlessly, and Dean slips into his forties with an ease that was missing entirely from his thirties, and most of his twenties, too. They do go back to hunting, eventually, but it's never like it was before, never a constant war against the end of the world. The end of the world has come and gone, and it pretty much left everything the way it was before. People still live, and love, and hate, and die. French fries are still salty and politicians are still crooked.

The biggest difference between now and before, though, is that Dean Winchester is happy.

Not "perfect world" happy. He still has bad days. Now sometimes he even has boring ones. He still misses his dad, and his mom. He still mourns Bobby, and Jo, Ellen and Ash, hell, even Rufus. The nightmares never completely go away. No magic snap of the fingers is going to give him back three and a half decades of his life, shaped into something warmer. Then again, he doesn't live in constant fear that a magic snap of the fingers will take everything he still has away from him.

He still has his life, his health, his car. He knows his brother is somewhere in the world, alive and finally happy, living that normal, apple pie life. And he has his angel.

Castiel doesn't get less grumpy with age, and he still manages to find himself in some kind of awkward social situation about every other time he talks to a human being besides Dean. Dean suspects he does it on purpose, because he knows it makes Dean laugh. He loves him for that.

He loves him for what he does behind Dean's back, too, the traitorous little letter he sneaks into the care package Dean finally gets up the courage to send to Sam. He'd never admit it out loud, but Dean is dying to see his niece. He knows he would never take that first step himself'; no matter how peaceful his life has become, relatively speaking, some small part of him is sure that the moment he and Sam are in the same room again, everything around them will fall to pieces. He knows what Castiel would say about that.

"The universe and all its trouble doesn't revolve around you and your brother, Dean."

"Not anymore, anyway."

And Cas would smile, agreeing. "Exactly. Not anymore."

Sometimes Dean wonders if destiny found another pair of brothers to make its bitch. Maybe a pair of sisters, who knows? One second he's just glad it's not him and Sam anymore, and in the next he hates himself for being so selfish. Castiel is always there to smooth away those doubts with practiced hands. That's another big difference, one Dean at twenty-six never would've seen coming.

He remembers wishing he could trade places with someone, wishing he'd never been born. He wouldn't trade what he has now for either. Dean Winchester likes his life.

* * *

"I hate my life," he laments as he turns off the highway onto the twisting, tree-lined back road that will lead them to Sam's house.

"Of course you do," Castiel mumbles from the passenger seat, head tilted back and eyes closed in an attempt to stave off the motion sickness triggered by driving all day through winding hills and mountains.

"This is a bad idea, Cas," Dean insists, for what must be the millionth time.

"Terrible," Castiel says. "But turning around now is a worse one, if you value your baby's upholstery."

"What?"

"If I don't get out of this car soon, I'm going to vomit."

Dean shuts up and keeps driving forward, closer and closer to the one thing he wants and fears most in the universe: a reunion with his brother.

He hopes that the moment he sees Sam's stupid, floppy hair and big, puppy hazel eyes won't be the very moment that their normal, apple pie lives come crashing down around them all over again.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Wow, I can't believe I finally finished this. I've had most of it sitting on my hard drive for ages, just waiting for me to figure out how to round off the chapter. There's still one more chapter to go. Thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed, especially you awesome people who wanted to read more. I have loved writing this story.


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